Care Ethics in the Age of Precarity

How care can resist the stifling force of the neoliberal paradigm

In a world brimming with tremendous wealth and resources, too many are suffering the oppression of precarious existences—and with no adequate relief from free market–driven institutions. Care Ethics in the Age of Precarity assembles an international group of interdisciplinary scholars to explore the question of care theory as a response to market-driven capitalism, addressing the relationship of three of the most compelling social and political subjects today: care, precarity, and neoliberalism. 

While care theory often centers on questions of individual actions and choices, this collection instead connects theory to the contemporary political moment and public sphere. The contributors address the link between neoliberal values—such as individualism, productive exchange, and the free market—and the pervasive state of precarity and vulnerability in which so many find themselves. From disability studies and medical ethics to natural-disaster responses and the posthuman, examples from Māori, Dutch, and Japanese politics to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, this collection presents illuminating new ways of considering precarity in our world. 

Care Ethics in the Age of Precarity offers a hopeful tone in the growing valorization of care, demonstrating the need for an innovative approach to precarity within entrenched systems of oppression and a change in priorities around the basic needs of humanity.

Contributors: Andries Baart, U Medical Center Utrecht, Tilburg U, and Catholic Theological U Utrecht, the Netherlands; Vrinda Dalmiya, U of Hawaii, Mānoa; Emilie Dionne, U Laval; Maggie FitzGerald, U of Saskatchewan; Sacha Ghandeharian, Carleton U; Eva Feder Kittay, Stony Brook U/SUNY; Carlo Leget, U of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands; Sarah Clark Miller, Penn State U; Luigina Mortari, U of Verona; Yayo Okano, Doshisha U, Kyoto, Japan; Elena Pulcini, U of Florence. 

Maurice Hamington is professor of philosophy at Portland State University. He has authored, coauthored, or coedited many books including Care Ethics and Poetry, Care Ethics and Political Theory, Socializing Care, and Embodied Care.

Michael Flower is emeritus professor of interdisciplinary science studies at Portland State University. He has worked with such scholars as Jonas Salk, Daniel Callahan, Clifford Grobstein, and Bruno Latour.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A Care Movement Born of Necessity

Maurice Hamington and Michael Flower

1. Precarity, Precariousness, and Disability

Eva Feder Kittay

2. Neoliberalism, Moral Precarity, and the Crisis of Care

Sarah Clark Miller

3. Vulnerability, Precarity, and the Ambivalent Interventions of Empathic Care

Vrinda Dalmiya

4. Precariousness, Precarity, Precariat, Precarization, and Social Redundancy: A Substantiated Map for the Ethics of Care

Andries Baart

5. Global Vulnerability: Why Take Care of Future Generations?

Elena Pulcini

6. Care: The Primacy of Being

Luigina Mortari

7. Deliberate Precarity? On the Relation between Care Ethics, Voluntary Precarity, and Voluntary Simplicity

Carlo Leget

8. Precarious Political Ontologies and the Ethics of Care

Maggie FitzGerald

9. Care Ethics and the Precarious Self: A Politics of Eros in a Neoliberal Age

Sacha Ghandeharian

10. Resisting Neoliberalism: A Feminist New Materialist Ethics of Care to Respond to Precarious World(s)

Emilie Dionne

11. Precariousness, Precarity, and Gender-Care Politics in Japan

Yayo Okano

Conclusion: Care as Responsive Infrastructure

Maurice Hamington and Michael Flower

Contributors

Index